


Moving

by Keysmasher



Series: Good Girl [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Depression, Dogs, Domestic, F/M, Face-Fucking, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:16:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keysmasher/pseuds/Keysmasher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They finally get around to getting a bigger house, Maria finds out she's pregnant, they adopt some dogs, and everything is happy - at least on the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tests

**Author's Note:**

> For the sake of a general time frame, this is around the end of May.

_Holy shit,_ she thought, staring down at the stick in her hand. Two little lines winked up at her.

Okay, she'd been half-expecting this. She wasn't on birth control, they didn't use condoms, and she was being fucked silly by three different people on a regular basis. Her period was over two weeks late, which wasn't unheard of for her, but combined with the nausea, the near-constant need to pee, the weight gain, and the mood swings that left her sobbing and her husbands bewildered….

But pregnancy tests were wrong sometimes, right? They returned a false positive? Did she _want_ it to be a false positive? Dean wanted kids, Cas wanted kids, Sam wanted kids, she didn't mind the idea if having kids - but fuck, she was in her early thirties, wasn't that kind of late to be a mom? How were they going to swing it? They'd already put in a contract on a house, a sprawling rancher with four bedrooms and three and a half baths. Cas was starting school in the fall, though it was the community college, and he'd found a job at a coffee shop. They had three decent incomes, and she made a little more than any two of the others combined. They could totally afford a baby, she told herself. And the other members of her odd little relationship, including her husband, wanted kids.

 _This is going to work,_ she told herself sternly. Still, when she got back to her office, she called and made an appointment for a pregnancy confirmation with her OBGYN.

Just to be sure.

She didn't tell them what she'd learned, keeping the conversation to politics, daily life, and books. It wasn't until she slid away from Dean's hands that Sam frowned at her.

"What's going on?" he asked. "You've been distracted all night."

"It's nothing," she said.

"It's not nothing," Dean argued. "You're not acting like yourself."

"Sorry. Work stress," she lied, anxiety heightening.

"Try again, babe," Sam said with a snort. "You literally just got done telling us you'd finished filing the paperwork and could relax for a month."

She bit her lip. "It's nothing important, okay?"

"Even you don't believe that," Cas said. "Just tell us."

She shook her head. "I just - I heard a rumor today. I'm waiting until it gets confirmed to act on it, but it could change a lot of things. Might cause some problems, might be a blessing. There's no way of knowing just yet."

"So what's the rumor?" Dean asked.

She shook her head again. "I'm not going to say anything else," she said firmly. "It'll get confirmed or denied on Wednesday, and then I'll know for sure."

"That's four days from now," Sam said. "You gonna be distracted all that time?"

"Of course not," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Cas said, kissing her neck. She sighed and leaned back into him, reaching out to hold Dean's hand and reassure him it wasn't him she was objecting to.  
***  
On Sunday, she and Cas finished the paperwork for the house - it had been decided early on that the two of them would put their names on it, for the sake of ease - and that was it, it was theirs.

Sam and Dean loaded the Impala and Sam's truck with boxes and furniture and started driving things to the new house. Big appliances, like the washer, dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator, and stove, came with the house, so they didn't need to worry about moving large things. The new house was barely fifteen minutes away from the old one, since they all liked the area. Sam had already mentioned wanting to get a dog, possibly prompted by the existence of a doggy door in the kitchen and of a fully-fenced yard. 

She'd grown up with dogs and couldn't remember a time she'd lived without them until she'd moved into her college dorm. Even so, whenever she'd gone home for breaks, there had been a dog waiting for her until she'd finished her second PhD and the black lab named Lily died. Her dad had decreed there would be no more dogs in the house, and so her mother hadn't gotten a new one. Not long after, she'd gotten her own apartment and then a house, and though she considered going by the pound, she thought it would be cruel to leave a dog alone for such extended periods of time. But now there were four of them, possibly five soon, and so a dog wouldn't be trapped inside for hours on end; even if it was left alone all day, there was a dog door so it could get in and out to do its business.

Dean was more reluctant. Cas was apparently neutral on the whole idea, but she figured once they had a giant, shaggy mutt sitting in his lap he'd grow attached fairly quickly.

It took them most of the day and a moving truck, but by ten o'clock, everything was in the house. They'd be unpacking for a week, and neither cable nor Internet was hooked up yet, but it was all inside, which was the important part. The first thing they'd put together was the bed, though from the looks in the boys' eyes, they weren't going to be spending much time on it.

Sam ran out for pizza, since none of them particularly felt like cooking, and the rest of them started unpacking the rest of the bedroom. There were two walk-in closets, which was fantastic for four people. Maria and Sam would be sharing one of the closets, Dean and Cas the other. She set up her laptop and opened her media player so they could have music while they unpacked.

Dean and Cas bickered quietly on the other side of the room, perhaps deciding whose clothes would go where. Maria pulled the boxes of her clothes up onto stools and started hanging them up - camisoles all went on one hanger at the far left, followed by shrugs and then short-sleeve blouses in rainbow order. She hung up her long-sleeve blouses and her three suit jackets in white, navy, and black to the right of those. After the jackets came her dresses, then slacks and skirts, in order of length and color. Her shoes went into the hanging shoe rack at the far left.

She started hanging up Sam's clothes in a similar fashion on the other side, throwing his grubby T-shirts and jeans in with hers to be folded in the dresser. She was half-done when she heard the front door open and Sam call, "Pizza."

"Be right there," she yelled back. "I'm gonna finish hanging up his clothes," she told Dean and Cas. "Go on, I'll be there in a minute."

"Kay," Dean said, hurrying out.

Cas smiled. "Hanging up his clothes for him?"

"I'm feeling domestic," she said defensively.

"Hurry up or I'll eat all the spinach."

"Do it and die, babe."

He put a look of fake shock on his face. "Death threats? Oh no!"

She laughed. "Go on, you. I only have, like, a dozen more shirts."

"All right, then, Magenta."

"I knew showing you that movie was a mistake," she joked. Cas grabbed her laptop and left her in silence.

She joined them five minutes later, squeezing onto the couch. Her computer was hooked up to the TV and _Duckman_ was playing.

"Where did you even _find_ this show?" Sam asked.

She shrugged. "My dad liked it. I pulled it off the share we had when I was a teenager and it's been here ever since." She took a bite of her white pizza, topped with spinach, feta, and tomatoes, and very nearly groaned. She fucking _loved_ that combination. And wasn't spinach good during pregnancy, anyway?

She stopped that train of thought.

Two episodes later, they'd all eaten their fill. Cas kissed Dean hard; Sam followed his lead, and for a moment, she just watched, breathless, so fucking turned on by the three of them kissing it wasn't even funny. She quietly stood and carried their plastic plates to the trash can to throw them away, then consolidated the leftover pizza into one box to put into the fridge. Only then did she return to the newly-designated living room.

Sam and Cas were both almost naked, wearing only their boxers; Dean still had his jeans on, possibly because both Sam and Cas were enjoying teasing him, biting at his nipples and neck. She leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. That was a view she doubted she'd ever get over, Dean all laid out for them with spit-slick lips and muscles.

"Does anyone know where the lube is?" Dean asked, panting.

Sam and Cas looked at each other. "Um," Sam said.

She fought back a laugh. "It's probably in one of the bedroom boxes."

"Well that's annoying," Sam said, leaning back. "Anyone want to find it?"

"Not particularly," Cas growled, moving over to her. "We're still trying to get her pregnant, aren't we?"

"Good point," Sam said with an evil grin.

Shit. Should she mention-? She knew that look, and it meant she was in for a rough night, if a good one. She was usually sore for days after she got that look, and it wasn't unusual for her to be bent over and fucked silly with her abdomen on something hard. That wasn't usually a problem, but with a fetus, it might be. But did she know for sure? The box said 99% accurate, but she'd seen men pee on sticks and get positive results. Was it worth the risk? If she was pregnant and they treated her the way she wanted to be treated, how likely was it the fetus would be hurt?

She had no fucking idea, but it would be pretty foolhardy to be fucked the way she normally was if she didn't know.

Lips crashed into hers, breaking her train of thought. Sam pulled away and said, "You looked pretty deep in thought there. Care to share?"

"Um." Yeah, she needed to tell them just in case. "Yeah, actually. That rumor I told you about?"

Sam blinked down at her. "Rumor?"

"Yeah." She backed up a little so she could see them all. "It's - um - please don't be angry at me because I didn't tell you this earlier, but, uh, I took a pregnancy test yesterday."

Dean stood. "And?"

"And it was positive. But sometimes those are wrong, so I made an appointment with my OB, and it's Wednesday, so it should get confirmed then."

"You're pregnant," Sam breathed.

"Maybe," she said hastily. "The tests aren't always accurate. I wanted to wait until I had an ultrasound, but we're usually pretty rough when we fuck, and, uh, I didn't want to risk something happening."

"You're _pregnant_ ," Cas repeated. 

"Confirmation Wednesday?" Dean asked, standing from the couch.

"Confirmation Wednesday," she said. "Three in the afternoon. I'll have to leave work early, but that's why I have an assistant manager."

She was suddenly buried in a hug. " _Pregnant,_ " Sam said again. "Jesus, Maria, you should've told us yesterday."

"I just didn't want to get your hopes up," she said, voice muffled by his chest.

"If it was a false positive, we'll just keep fucking you," he said.

"Not like it's something we don't want to do anyway," Dean said from behind Sam.

"Very true," Cas said calmly. "I suppose we'll find out Wednesday."

She felt Sam's dick poking her belly through the thin cotton of his boxers and smiled. "Someone's _very_ happy."

"Is this why we didn't fuck last night?" Dean asked.

"I was panicking last night," she said.

"That's why you have us," Cas said sternly. "So we can all panic together."

"I feel more like celebrating," Dean said, draping his arms over her shoulders. "What do you say we celebrate? I like celebrating."

"Never would have guessed," she joked, reaching down and finding their dicks with ease.

Cas pushed Dean down to his knees. "No lube, so I can't fuck you quite yet," he said. "Tell you what. Suck me off, and I'll blow in your ass. That'll be good enough lube for a whore like you."

She slid to her knees, mirroring Dean's pose. "Plenty of things we can do without me on my belly," she said with a grin, reaching forward and tugging Sam's boxers down. He sprung out, fully hard, the weight of him dragging down the head. She leaned forward and nuzzled against his hip for a moment. "Love you."

"Love you too, baby," he said, petting her hair. Dean took her hand; she looked over to find him bobbing on Cas's dick. They were so close Cas and Sam's hips were touching.

Her other hand came up to grip the other side of Sam's lean hips and she licked her way up the side of Sam's cock to the head, swirling her tongue around and finding the bundle of nerves on the underside that always made him jerk. He hissed and clenched his fists in her hair, but he let her move how she wanted.

What she _wanted_ was for him to fuck her mouth. It had been a few months since she'd wanted to be owned this badly, and Sam was letting her call the shots at the moment. Two could play at that game, she decided, and went still, flicking her tongue over the head of his dick at a steady pace but otherwise not moving.

"Oh, is _that_ how you want it," Sam said after only a few seconds. "Fine." He moved his hips forward slowly, filling her mouth. Beside them, Cas was fucking Dean's face hard, provoking the sounds of gagging and flesh slapping flesh. "If you're not going to suck me yourself, I'll just have to _make_ you." He kept pushing forward relentlessly, sliding down her throat and cutting off her air, only backing off when she turned purple and then returning, controlling her air supply.

"Such a good little slut," Sam said. "Love it so much. Your throat's so warm and wet for us. All for us. _Only_ for us. Getting us off, such a good girl."

Cas pulled out of Dean's mouth and walked around behind him, pushing Dean forward as he went until Dean had to let go of her hand to rest on his elbows. Cas started jacking himself, head right against Dean's hole.

"Come on, Cas," Sam said. "Let it go. Come in that tight ass so we can fuck it."

"I'm planning on it," Cas snapped, hand a blur.

She felt tears welling up when Sam pushed himself all the way down and started humping her throat furiously, pulling out just enough she could get air if she timed it right. "Come on, whore," he grunted. "Gonna fill you up, fill your belly with cum, same way we fill your cunt." She unbuttoned her jeans and slid a hand inside her panties to rub her clit. Beside them, she heard Cas come with a grunt.

Sam pulled out of her mouth and ordered, "Jeans down." He walked behind her and knelt as she struggled to push them down to her knees, or at least her thighs.

Sam sighed and pulled her back to sit on his lap. "Get them off."

It was, oddly, easier in that position, and she had them at her knees in no time. Sam pushed her forward again until she was resting on her elbows. A hand gripped her head and turned it sideways; Cas was doing the same to Dean, and their heads were pushed at each other until they kissed.

Sam and Cas pushed in at the same moment, making the two on their knees lurch forward. "Keep kissing, sluts," Sam growled, hands holding their heads together. His dick filled her over and over; her belly rolled and spasmed, she fucking _loved_ being ordered around like this, and Dean's tongue was in her mouth, fucking it the way Sam had fucked it with his dick.

They fell into bed an hour later, exhausted but happy.


	2. Confirmation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maria is less than happy about being pregnant.

By the time she got home on Wednesday afternoon, she was almost vibrating. This was good, she told herself, this was _excellent_.

Cas smiled when he found her putting her shoes in the closet. "Good news, then?"

"I _am_ pregnant," she said. "But wait, there's more."

The joke went right over his head. "What is it?"

She handed him the folder they'd given her. "See for yourself."

He pulled out the ultrasound photos and studied them for a moment. "You also have a cyst?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Cas. They're _twins._ We're having _twins._ "

His mouth actually dropped open a few inches. "Are you - do you - I mean - are you sure?"

"Sure as sure can be," she said cheerfully. "They're right there."

"That's…" Cas trailed off, apparently overwhelmed, then grabbed her and pulled her close. "Twins," he said into her hair.

"Twins," she confirmed. "They can't tell the sex yet, but there's definitely two of them. The doc said I'm about seven weeks along, so there's seven months to go."

"I love you," Cas said, separating just far enough to kiss her.

"I love you too," she said into his mouth, secure in that.  
***  
Sam got home a little before Dean did. "Hey," he said, finding them in the living room. "How were your days?"

"Fantastic," Cas said. "Tell him, Maria."

"Tell me what?"

She grinned and wiped her hands on her jeans to get rid of some of the dust that had settled there in their unpacking. "I'm pregnant."

Sam's face softened. "That's great."

"Wait," Cas said, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"It's twins," she informed him.

He stared at her a moment before hurrying forward and grabbing her in a hug that lifted her off the floor. "I love you, I love you so much," he said, kissing all over her face. When it looked like she wasn't going to be let go any time soon, she wrapped her legs around his waist so his hands would stop digging so hard into her sensitive back.

"I have ultrasounds," she said when she could get a breath in. Sam growled into her ear and kissed her again.

 _Guess that means I'm not getting them,_ she thought.

She heard the door open and close, heavy feet making their way into the house, and she knew Dean was home. "Guys?" he called.

"In here," Sam yelled back before nuzzling her neck. " _Twins_ ," he repeated.

"Am I missing out on the fun?" Dean asked from the doorway.

"Twins," Sam said. "We're having twins."

"Twins?" Dean repeated. "We're having _twins?_ "

"We're having twins," she confirmed. "There's the ultrasound pictures in that blue folder, if you want to look."

"They don't look like much," Dean said after a few moments of study.

She snorted. "Cas thought one of them was a cyst. They don't start looking human for another few months, I think. I have a month-by-month guide in there somewhere."

"When are you due?" Dean asked.

"Doc said middle of March, and that's as close as she could get. It'll get more exact as they develop more."

"Spring babies," Sam said, lips ghosting over her ear.

"That's usually the coldest time around here. Or haven't you noticed?" she teased. "Sam, honey, let me down. We need to get this room in order."

"Nope," Sam said, tightening his grip. "You're done with unpacking."

"What?"

"You're going to rest," Dean told her firmly. "First trimester's when the most miscarriages happen."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I pay attention."

She slid down Sam to stand on her own feet again. "Guys, I'm barely two months. If there was a serious risk, the doc would've told me. I'm probably going to be on bed rest for the last month or so, so let me enjoy my freedom while I can, okay? Cas, did you see the glass decoration in that box?"

"It's right here," Cas said.

"We need a nursery," Sam said suddenly.

"That's right, we do," Dean said. "And mobiles, and cribs, and toys, and clothes, and blankets, and-"

"You seem very excited," she said dryly.

"You're not?" he retorted, pulling her over to put an arm around her shoulders.

"Of course I am." She smiled.

Dean frowned, studying her face. "You're not."

"Why would you say that?" she asked.

Dean half-turned to put a hand on her cheek and she looked away. When she hadn't wanted to talk about something when she was growing up she'd usually been screamed at, so that's how all her defenses were set up to withstand. Someone actually talking to her, caring about how she felt as much as they cared about what she was hiding? That was new, even after all this time living with them. She'd rarely had reason to hide her thoughts before.

"Maria," he said. "Please don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying," she snapped, anger suddenly flaring. She tamped it back down almost reflexively and said more evenly, "I'm not lying."

"Babe?" Sam asked, coming forward. "What's up?"

"It's nothing," she said. "Really."

"Maria," Dean half-growled.

"Look at us," she said quietly. "None of us really had good parents growing up, did we? How do we know we're not going to fuck them up the ways we're fucked up?"

"First off," Dean said, "you're the only one who _had_ two parents, Cas is several billion years old, and Sammy and I had a father who was driven by revenge. None of our parents' skills apply to a three-bedroom house in the country with stable jobs."

She crossed her arms uncomfortably. "I'm just - I'm afraid. I'm afraid our kids are going to end up like me."

"If they do they'll be lucky," Sam said.

She twisted away from Dean's hand. "Will they, though? Look at me. I'm a mess. I'm depressed and anxious all the time, my back is fucked - and they think that's genetic, too, did you know that? - basically my body is pretty damn useless, and my mind's not the strongest. If they end up like me, it might be kinder to just not…" She couldn't even finish, her voice breaking. She buried her face in her hands.

She didn't see the glances the three of them traded. "Do you _want_ an abortion?" Dean asked carefully, but she could hear the undercurrent of anger there.

"No," she said. "No, I don’t, but - but I don't want - and I'm just being selfish, I know, it's not going to be just me raising them, but I can't help but _worry_ -"

"Hey," Cas said gently. Someone settled a hand on her shoulder. "If their backs are fucked the same way yours is, you'll be able to help them out. If they're depressed or anxious, we won't let them get to the point where they try to kill themselves. Okay?"

"Okay," she said. That didn't really help, but shit, she'd never really wanted kids to begin with. Maybe that would change now that she was pregnant, maybe she'd start wanting them. And she'd agreed to this, she'd agreed to have kids, so it was a little late to change her mind. Especially if she didn't want to drive them all away, she knew she wasn't enough for the three of them to split over, not after everything they'd done together.

She took a deep breath. She could do this. _They_ could do this. _Unit_ , she told herself. _We're a fucking unit._

Her second dorm had been called the Units, her brain helpfully reminded her. The weight of the empty bottles of alcohol hidden in the ceiling had cracked a tile and sent shattered glass and empty beer cans skittering all over the floor of her room; she'd cut her feet open for weeks afterward, even after moving all the furniture and sweeping. Maintenance had given her a skeptical look when she claimed she didn't know how because she'd been out of the room at the time, but if she said alcohol had broken the tile they would have called her a drunk and expelled her.

 _You always have an out,_ she thought. It was her old standby, a reminder that she'd learned from her failed attempt and could do better if she ever tried again. It was always a comfort.

Whenever she stopped to think about that, she wondered if maybe she _should_ go back on antidepressants, or at least start seeing a therapist again. But she knew she wouldn't be able to stand the looks on their faces if she admitted she wanted help for a problem she kept hidden, so she didn't.

"What's going through that mind of yours?" Sam asked, breaking her train of thought.

"Nothing." She took another deep breath. "Just telling myself this is doable."

"Fuck yeah it is," Dean said. "We're gonna kick _ass_ as parents." Sam snorted a laugh, and Dean said, "Pipe down, I raised you and you turned out okay."

"We're hunters," Sam said dryly. "Pretty sure 'okay' is stretching it a bit."

"Well, you didn't snap and go on a murder spree, so I'm counting that as 'good'."

"You're inspiring such confidence," Cas said sarcastically.

"Unpacking," Maria said, changing the subject before they realized she wasn't telling them everything. "Let's finish up this room."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got kinda tired about fics where everyone was "OMG BABY!!!! :D" and this felt like a more natural reaction for her.


	3. Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten points to the first person to comment with the song the title's making fun of.

"Hello," the brunette woman behind the desk said cheerfully.

"Hi, uh, Janice," Dean said, eyes flicking down to her nametag for a brief second before returning to her face. "How are you?"

"I'm good, how are y'all?"

"Doin' fine," Dean said easily.

"So what can I help you with?"

"We're looking to adopt a dog," Sam said.

"This is a pound, honey, got anything more specific?" she asked.

Maria snickered at the flush on his face. "Big and good with kids," she said. "That's about it."

"Oh, how many do you have?" the woman asked.

"None yet," Cas said.

"I'm pregnant," Maria said when Janice's face morphed into confusion.

"Oh, that's wonderful! How far along are you?" she asked excitedly, standing from her seat.

"Three months. We got a ways to go." She put a hand over her abdomen protectively. She was just starting to show; three months was early for a single birth, but with twins, it was right on schedule.

It had taken them a while to finish unpacking, and then to decide what kind of dog they wanted. Dean had ruled out 'small, yappy' ones, which she was fine with; looking at ankle height for small bodies was not her forte. She'd grown up with labs and mutts, and she liked dogs she could play tug-of-war with without worrying about breaking them. Sam liked big dogs, too; Cas hadn't had an opinion.

"Purebred? Mutt?" Janice asked, pulling down a binder marked '42D'.

"Doesn't matter," Sam answered.

"Big and good with kids," Janice said. "Age?"

"Young enough to be around for at least a few years," Maria said.

"Puppies?"

"If they're old enough to be housebroken," Dean answered.

"All right, then!" Janice finished flipping through the binder. "We have a couple dozen that fit."

"A few _dozen?_ " Sam repeated, surprised.

"This is a no-kill shelter, sugar," Janice said. "We keep them until they get adopted or die on their own. If you'll follow me?"

Some of the dogs took one look at Cas and backed away, whining, with their tails between their legs. Others ran right up to him, barking happily and shoving their heads against his hip as if they were trying to disprove Pauli's Exclusionary Principle and completely ignoring the rest of them.

Three of the adult dogs were happy enough with all of them, licking their hands and thumping their tails against the concrete floor. The puppies jumped all over all of them.

"What do you think?" Sam asked them.

"I liked Gnat," Cas said. Gnat had been a neutered Rottweiler/pit bull puppy, with the giant paws and head he would eventually grow into.

"Basket was cool," Dean offered. Basket was a spayed, half-grown Belgian Malinois mix.

"I liked them all," Maria admitted. "Or at least, the ones that liked us."

"So which one?" Janice asked excitedly.

They looked at each other. "Both are puppies," Maria said slowly. "They're cute, they like us, they'll be alive for a while."

"So it comes down to who we liked more," Dean said.

"Or both," Cas pointed out. "Is there a reason we can't get both?"

Maria thought. "Money wouldn't be an issue, with all of us working. Do they get along okay?" she asked Janice.

"I don't know. Do you want to put them together and see how they respond?"

"That would be a good idea," Sam said.

Five minutes later, Gnat and Basket were play-wrestling, tails wagging excitedly. "Guess they _do_ get along," Dean said. "Do we have enough stuff for both of them?"

"It's not like dog bowls are hard to find," Maria said.

"Both of them, then?" Janice asked.

They looked at each other. "Yep," Sam said. "Both of them."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more about why Maria's on the fence about being a mommy.

Time flew. Basket was already housebroken, which made it easier to train Gnat. They taught them the basic commands - sit, stay, come, lie down - in a matter of weeks. Their more adventurous activities took a backseat to painting and putting together furniture for the nursery; between the frustration of putting together cribs and the stresses of work, they were all just too tired for much more than getting each other off.

A month and a half after they got their dogs, Maria had another ultrasound done. She came back with another set of prints and spread them out on the table.

Panic really set in then. She was halfway there; in less than five months she'd be responsible for two lives, making sure they didn't fuck up the way she'd fucked up, trying not to screw them up the way her parents had screwed up her and her siblings. Sam was pushing forty and still acted like a frat boy despite the fact that he'd flunked out of community college. Before Laura had pushed Maria out of her life, she'd confided that it was a loveless marriage, one she'd mostly gone into because the sex wasn't bad and she was terrified of getting older alone; she'd been on forty milligrams of Prozac, twice the normal dose, at twenty. 

Neither of her siblings of them had their lives together in any sort of meaningful way, and she was always scared that one day she'd wake up to an empty house and an empty bed. She was downright terrified that one day the depression would get to be too much, and the tools she used to comfort herself on bad days would stop working, and she'd lose control again.

She wasn't cut out to be a mother, she _knew_ that, why the fuck had she agreed? Fear that Dean would leave her? Fuck, how weak was she, that she agreed to having kids so she wouldn't be alone - but was that why?

 _Fuck. Why can't anything be simple?_ she wondered. Thank God for the internet, which had assured her she wasn't as broken as she'd feared. Apparently a lot of people felt that way - mostly men, true, but she was far from the only woman.

She took a deep breath when she heard the door open.

They were a unit. This was doable.

"Honey, I'm home," Sam called out.

"In the dining room," she called back. "With pictures."

"Mm, Miss Scarlet in the dining room with pictures," Sam joked.

"Is that a Nathaniel Hawthorne joke?" she asked indignantly.

He blinked at her, mind obviously racing. It took him almost five seconds to put it together, and then he groaned. "I hate you."

"You work at a _library_ , dear," she reminded him. "I thought it was nerdy enough for you to enjoy."

He picked up one of the ultrasound photos with a long, slender hand. "Tell me what I'm looking at?"

She pointed. "This one's a girl."

"And the other?"

"Bad position. We couldn't tell."

"So we're going to have a little girl." His thumb brushed over the ultrasound and he looked like he was about to cry, bringing a fresh wave of guilt down on her; he was so fucking happy, and she was so caught up in herself she couldn't see this for the good thing it was.

Gnat chose this moment to come running into the room, paws sliding out from under him on the laminate flooring. He crashed headfirst into the wall, sending him sprawling. A second later, his tail started thumping and he rolled onto his back, wiggling happily.

Sam stared at him and then said, "I think the dog's a little damaged."

"Oh, he's just a happy little puppy, aren'tcha, Gnat? C'mere, boy."

Basket, having heard Gnat's name, barreled into the dining room as well. She tried to stop at their feet, but she didn't have good traction, either, and she slid straight into Maria's legs with a yelp.

Her arms pinwheeled wildly as she went down, flailing for something to break her fall. One arm smacked the table and bounced off, but Sam caught the other, holding her upright while she got her feet back beneath her.

"You okay?" he asked her.

Basket, completely unaware of the chaos she'd almost caused, whined and pawed at her leg. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Yes, Basket, I know you exist. Calm down. Sit."

Gnat jumped around Sam's legs with a happy yip. "Why did we get dogs, again?" he asked.

She grinned. "Because you wanted one." She scratched Basket's ears and the dog's tongue lolled out.

"Why didn't you talk me out of it?"

"Because I like dogs, too. What do you want for dinner tonight? I feel like cooking."

He followed her into the kitchen and said, "So I've been thinking."

"About?"

"The kids. How we're going to raise them."

"What do you mean?"

"From what you've told us," Sam said, choosing his words carefully, "your dad pretty much beat atheism into you. Our dad was pretty areligious. Cas is...he's Cas. He's going to be telling them the Great Flood as a bedtime story. But do we go to church? Do we raise them to be passive? Do we teach them self-defense? Do we-"

She cut him off. "Shouldn't we be discussing this with Dean and Cas, too?"

He sighed and looked down at his hands. "Yeah. But I wanted to talk to you first. They'll have three dads, but only one mom."

She suddenly stopped and remembered something from one of her undergrad sociology classes. "Are you worried about being a father with two other people?"

"Maybe a little," he mumbled, looking away.

The mere fact that they were even talking about this reminded her how much he was trusting her with. "You'll always be their Sammy," she said gently. "Dean will teach them when and how to beat people up, and Cas will teach them to look at the clouds and tell them about Heaven and Hell, and I'll be the one telling them not to fuck up too bad and the one who works late, but you'll be the one helping them with homework and teaching them to be kind and being the kind of dad everyone wishes they had."

"You think so?" he asked.

"Hey. Just being worried about it proves you're going to be good."

"Really?"

"The worst fathers, at least in everyday life, are the ones that go into it expecting it to be a breeze and not bothering to learn about kids." She pulled out a container of chicken breasts. "That's what I've seen, anyway."

"Huh." He frowned, mulling it over. "I'll think on that. Back to my original question - oh, I _know_ you are not about to start touching raw chicken."

She paused, knife poised to cut through the plastic. "Shit. I forgot." She wasn't supposed to touch raw chicken when she was pregnant. It was a rule put in place not by her doctor, who told her it was fine as log as she washed her hands thoroughly (which she always did, with raw meat), but by her men.

"How do you want it cut?" he asked, moving forward.

"Chunks," she said sheepishly. "I was thinking about doing pot pie tonight. I'll get the pancake mix."

While he was cutting and she was mixing, he asked, "What color do you want the nursery?"

"Hmm? Oh, I don't know," she said, cutting in butter. "Green, maybe, or yellow."

"Not pink?"

"Not pink," she said firmly. "We start with a pink room, and then suddenly, its pink blankets and pink clothes and everything for her is pink and everything for him, if there _is_ a him, is blue."

"So you don't want blue, either," Sam said, washing his hands.

"Nope." She grabbed the 9x13 and started spreading the dough. "Gender-neutral colors, I guess you could say. I don't want them feeling like they have to fit in a box."

"Huh." He got out a pan. "Did _you_ feel like you had to fit into a box?"

She was quiet for a moment before she said, "I was the youngest, in a back brace, socially incompetent, and too damn smart for my own good. Femininity was all I had left to make my parents proud of me. I didn't even _swear_ until I was at college. It took me six months away from home to get up the courage to look at porn."

"Seriously?" Sam blurted.

"Seriously," she said. "I was so wrapped up in what they wanted me to be I damn near killed myself trying to get there. I wore skirts and dresses every day until I was thirteen. I started wearing make-up at fourteen. I pretended I wasn't interested in building anything. I wasn't allowed to be angry, because that isn't ladylike, so I learned to act like it didn't exist. Can you move so I can pop this in the oven? Thanks. I know you know what that's like."

"How do you know that?" he challenged, moving back in front of the stove when she re-closed the door and set the timer.

"Because I've seen it," she answered, reaching up into the cabinet for the chicken broth. "We're both very angry people, but we act like we're not for the sake of everyone else. Mind getting me a pot?"

"Sure." Sam reached down to open the cabinet. "We're going to have to figure out a better way to do this," he complained when four pots fell out. He grabbed the largest one and swung it up onto the stove, stuffing the rest of them back inside. "Our dad, as long as we did what he said, he left us alone."

She nodded. "A lot of my friends' dads were like that."

"Was yours?"

"Nah. My dad was openly contemptuous of pretty much everything I liked, so I stopped telling him about my life." She put a few tablespoons of butter, some flour, and a few shakes of black pepper into the large pot and whisked furiously to make a roux. "But enough about my parents. Let's get back to our kids."

"Our diet's pretty good, I think," Sam said. "Vegetables with every meal."

She chuckled. "Fair enough. Religion. You said something about church?"

"Let's let Cas make that call," Sam said hastily. "If he wants them to go to church, he'll be the one finding a church around here to attend."

"Community Tabernacle seems reasonable enough," she said. "I mean, I've never been to their services, and I'm not actually sure what sect they belong to, but the members are nice enough and I know the preacher dude okay." She poured the broth into the roux and whisked it until the clumps were gone.

"I think tabernacle's Pentecostal," Sam said.

"We've also got a Catholic church, two Presbyterians, a Mormon, three Baptists, a few Methodist, some Episcopals-"

"How many churches can this little town hold?" Sam asked.

The oven beeped and she pulled out the pan. "You'd be amazed. Chicken ready?"

He looked down. "Yep."

"Throw it in the gravy, then," she said. "I'll get the vegetables soon as I have somewhere to put this."

"Oh, sorry," Sam said, hurriedly taking the pan of chicken off the heat so she had a space to set down the 9x13.

"It's fine." She dropped the potholder on the counter and opened the freezer to find the bags of mixed vegetables. "What else did we have?"

"Other than names?" Sam asked innocently.

"Oh Jesus fuck," she mumbled. Somehow she'd forgotten they'd have to _name_ the two of them. "What were you thinking for the girl?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "Isabella Swan Brasen?"

She grinned and suggested, "Amanda Lynn?"

"Rachel Renee."

"Penelope Francine."

"Lorraine Nancy."

"Thing One and Thing Two."

"That what your dad wanted to name you?"

"Yes, actually. Things One and Two or Jose and Hose-B."

"Ooh, ouch."

The door opened and closed. "I'm home," someone called over the sound of the dogs barking excitedly.

"In the kitchen," the two of them chorused. Maria grabbed the mix to start on the top crust.

Cas smiled when he saw them, hands palm-down at his sides to try to calm Gnat and Basket. "What're you making?"

"Pot pie," Sam said cheerfully.

"It's almost ready for the oven," she added. "Just need to finish the topping. How was your day?"

"Long and boring. Yours?"

"Same," Sam said. "Til I got home, anyway."

"Found out the sex of one of the babies today," Maria explained. "It's a girl."

"And the other?" Cas asked.

"She was blocking the other one," Maria said with a chuckle.

Cas frowned. "Is that normal?" he asked worriedly.

"It's fine," she assured him. "When my mom was pregnant with us, Laura did the same thing to me. They actually thought I was going to be a boy until I came out. It was a bit of a surprise for them."

"One of them is a girl," Cas said, coming up behind her.

"Uh-huh. They should start to move soon."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned down to press his lips into her hair. He and Dean were both physical; Sam was more self-contained, she'd noticed. She leaned back into him.

"Move how?" Cas asked.

"Kicking and such. Usually it happens by now, but it's my first pregnancy, so it can happen later." She stifled a yawn.

Sam tugged the mixing bowl away from her. "I'll deal with this," he said. "You go lay down. I'll join y'all in a minute."

"Okay," she said, smothering another yawn. The pregnancy was screwing with her sleep schedule _hard_ , keeping her up until all hours of the night one day and making her crash early the next. 

She followed Cas out to the living room and sat next to him on the couch, laying her head on his shoulder. Gnat stretched himself out over their laps, wiggling so hard she put a hand on his side so he wouldn't fall off; Basket laid down beside her and put her chin on her thigh. "You're pitiful," she told Basket, her free hand coming down to scratch her ears. Basket's tail thumped the couch lazily.

Maria yawned again. Cas tugged her to sit more comfortably against him, and she fell asleep with her head tucked under his and their dogs on their laps.


	5. Chapter 5

They eventually agreed to paint the nursery yellow and white. She was exiled from the room until the paint dried, which she wasn't exactly complaining about. The names were surprisingly easy to decide on.

"I don’t want to name them after any of our parents," Dean said. "They're all either dead or incommunicado."

"I like Becky," Cas said thoughtfully.

"No!" Sam and Dean chorused.

"There's a story there, right?" Maria asked, leaning forward.

Sam shuddered. "We told you how Chuck wrote books about us? She was fangirl. One weekend she drugged and married me. When it wore off I had it annulled."

Maria shook her head. "That's ridiculous."

"Yeah. So no Becky, Rebecca, anything like that."

"Kayla," Dean suggested.

"No Kayla," Maria said hastily.

"There's a story there, right?" Sam half-mocked.

She rolled her eyes. "Sixth grade, I was still in a back brace. Kayla took great pleasure in humiliating me every single day for it. Emma?"

"No, that was the name of my daughter," Dean said. "She was an Amazon sent by her tribe to kill me the day after she was born, and Sam killed her instead."

She took that at face value and didn't press further.

"Anna?" Sam asked. "She was pretty cool. I mean, until she went psycho and tried to kill us all."

"She was my commander at one point," Cas said. "She did what she thought was right."

"Can't hold it against her," Dean agreed. "You cool with Anna?"

"Fine with me," she said.

"Asbilay for the middle name," Cas said. They all shrugged, knowing middle names didn't really matter. "For the other, if it's a boy - Aspian Loe?"

"Where'd that come from?" Maria asked.

"It is Enochian for 'glorious qualities'."

"So what's Asbilay mean?"

"Holy. And Anna means graciousness."

"And if he doesn't like Aspian, he can be called Asp." Maria quirked a smile. "He'll probably like that."

"What if it's a girl?" Sam asked.

"Samantha," Dean said dryly, ruffling Sam's hair roughly.

"Get _off_ ," Sam said irritably, shoving at him. She had to look away, forcibly reminded of when she'd been younger and she'd done similar things with her siblings - who now wanted nothing to do with her.

"Amanda Lynn," Maria suggested again.

"Rhonda," Sam shot back.

Dean turned a faint pink, but before she could ask, he said, "Lily."

"I had a lab named Lily," she said. "Speaking of which, where're Gnat and Basket?"

"It's a nice day, they're probably outside," Cas said dismissively. "Rose."

They looked at each other and collectively shrugged. "Candide for the middle name?" Sam suggested. "I know it was a guy, but I liked that play."

"I've never actually seen it," Maria admitted.

"Rose Candide," Dean said. "I like that. Cas?"

"I'm fine with it."

"So we have Anna Asbilay, Aspian Loe, and Rose Candide," Maria said. "That was quick and mostly painless."

That night, awake next to her snoring men (well, Cas and Dean snored. Sam was quiet), Maria worried. The same worries that plagued her during the day smothered her at night, reminding her of being a teenager, when she'd panicked over nothing on a daily basis and had turned to hurting herself to cope with the anxiety and depression. In the dark, laying in bed while her partners taunted her with their ability to sleep, the problems seemed insurmountable. She didn't know what she'd do if her daughter had even half the same problems she herself had; could she ever forgive herself for bringing Anna into the world if she had the same medical conditions and allergies? What about the other one, Aspian or Rose, what if they had her health problems? Or her mental problems? What if they didn't like her?

 _What if they're hipsters?_ she thought, trying to make a joke out of her fear by using something she didn't care about. 

Her dad's biggest fear had been that any of his kids would be gay, and all it did was ensure none of them gave a shit what he thought about them - although she did have to wonder about her brother; he had been known to braid his hair, paint his nails, watch TV shows about dresses and fashion, and play Gay Chicken. It was more than likely he was at least bi and hiding it so their father wouldn't disown him the way Maria had ben disowned. _And I was super-straight,_ she thought with dark humor.

Her mother's fear had been that neither she nor her sister would find husbands. Mission fucking accomplished on that front, and it still hadn't been enough.

None of them, not one, had any fucking idea how to parent successfully. Well, Dean might; he'd basically raised Sam. The rest of them would be completely fucking lost.

 _That's what the internet is for,_ she told herself sternly. Fuck, she'd forgotten this feeling. She hadn't missed it at all.

She burrowed back into the warmth of Cas's body and didn't fall asleep until almost four.  
***  
Over the next few months, it _did_ get easier. She could shove the anxiety away and act like everything was okay. She made appointments and kept them; she went to meetings; she endured the strangers' hands on her belly and the condescension people started to treat her with. They went shopping for strollers, blankets, clothes. A lot of the baby clothes they got secondhand; the kids wouldn't know the difference, and they'd outgrow them in a matter of weeks.

At month seven, Cas decided he'd quit his job. He didn't really care about working retail, and the cost of childcare was more than he pulled in. The extra time at home would make it easier for him to finish his diploma.

They attended Sam's graduation at the end of December, two and a half months before her due date. It was held in a local high school gym, and Dean sat on the bench behind Maria so she could lean back on his legs; bleachers weren't made for pregnant women. Maria started crying when they called Sam's name, but she cried at the drop of a hat now anyway. Dean smoothed her hair back and Cas gripped her hand, and when they went outside to meet him by the doors, Sam picked her up off her feet to kiss her.

Things were going well, she was as healthy as she could expect to be, Cas was doing well in school, Sam was done with school, work continued to be interesting. There was absolutely nothing wrong.

Of course it couldn't last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* I actually did a cliffhanger this time. I have the next story already written (which is partially why it took me so long to get this installment posted); I'll post that in a few days, after I read over/re-edit.


End file.
